Work costing hundreds of thousands of pounds is underway to conserve and regenerate the country’s biggest Napoleonic fortress.
Improvements to Dover’s Western Heights include clearing overgrown vegetation from buildings and restoring views across the coastline.
It comes after Historic England provided a £149,000 grant last year to support the vital work and improve the area’s connection to the town and waterfront.
Match funding from Dover District Council (DDC) doubled that figure to almost £300,000 for the three-year project.
The grant will fund a project officer whose tasks will include coordinating and increasing volunteering opportunities and building visitor numbers through promoting the site and hosting events.
It is hoped that investment in the area will make it safer for visitors. Recently, the Gun Shed area was cleared, which had been a target for anti-social behaviour.
Volunteers from the Western Heights Preservation Society and White Cliffs Countryside Partnership have also helped to transform areas at St Martin’s Battery.
Signs, solar-powered CCTV and a compactor bin, featuring local legend Plassey the Tiger, who once sparked terror among Dover’s residents, have all been installed in the last year.
The Western Heights is an extensive site of national importance, including a scheduled monument, two listed buildings, a conservation area, a local nature reserve with protected species and a wildlife site with chalk grassland.
Cllr Lynne Wright, DDC’s cabinet member for corporate property, said: “The Western Heights is one of the district’s most impressive sites and we are using this project to help us better understand its significance and wider importance to the town.”
Alice Brockway, development advice team leader at Historic England, added: “It’s one year into this exciting three-year project at the Western Heights, and we’re delighted with the progress to date.
“The phenomenal views have to be seen to be believed, so I’d recommend to anyone who hasn’t been to head up to the Heights and experience this extraordinary place in person.”
The Western Heights are a series of forts linked by miles of ditches on the western hilltop above Dover. The steep hillsides are a natural barrier and defences were dug into them.
There had been plans to turn its Citadel complex – which after army use was a prison and immigration removal centre – into a business and tourism hub.
Last year, bosses of Dover Citadel Ltd spoke of ambitious proposals to transform the site through a £100 million investment after receiving government funding.
But in November they put it on the market for £10 million.
